On 6 May 2010 10:01, Evil Jay wine@eternaldusk.com wrote:
On 05/05/2010 02:34 PM, André Hentschel wrote:
Hi Folks, Steam seems to add a Linux client in the near future, so maybe Wine will not be needed anymore for that. or did i get something wrong? That might reduce our "market share" a bit as i guess that many Wineusers play steam games. On the other hand Intel presented its Z600, which is basically x86 but without IDE, SATA or a BIOS. Thats the reason that it cant run Windows. So Linux runs and so should Wine i guess. So we might see some mobil advantures in the near future?
I would not hold my breath waiting for that Steam client, there's still been no official announcement and it could just as well be something they just play around with as a side project for the next half decade.
Phoronix has been claiming Steam for Linux was imminent for 2 years... but for how many years did they (and even the developers) say that UT3 was right around the corner? A few 32-bit god-awfully incomplete binaries that can't even launch the actual GUI is not near enough to start me waiting in a virtual line.
To take the Devil's advocacy a step farther: For all we know, Steam for Linux is not even being actively developed; They may have started it with the Mac port and abandoned it as too resource intensive for the expected payoff. The few updates that we've seen (before the Linux build was pulled) may well be the result of of the automated package builder recompiling the Linux files due to changes in some shared upstream code (being changed for the benefit of the Mac or Windows client).
Now, personally I am hoping like crazy that Steam for Linux does materialize in the next year or two. But, if it does, it will hardly put a dent in Wine's use for gaming. Steam's not a game, so naturally we must assume that Valve will port the Source engine too, so that they will have some games to sell. That's great, but how many games in the AppDB are using the Source engine? How many games sold through Steam even use it, and will the non-Valve developers take the time to build Linux packages? Wine has plenty of gaming left in its future.
The other solution is they pull a Picasa/Google Earth manoeuvre and bundle Wine with Steam (or rely on Wine to play the games).
-J